A System on Chip or (SOC) design allows for the integration of many, if not all, of the components of a system onto a single chip design. These systems are known to have many benefits and advantages including simplifying the overall system design and reducing the chip interconnect requirements.
By way of example, a SOC can include an embedded processor such as a MIPS RISC core microprocessor which can communicate with memory and I/O devices using a memory and I/O bus. In some implementations, the SOC also includes an embedded Memory and I/O Bridge which interfaces the memory and I/O bus to a memory controller and an I/O controller. The embedded processor accesses memory using the memory and I/O bus to send memory access requests (memory read and memory write requests) to the memory controller to retrieve and store data in memory. Similarly, the embedded processor access other external or peripheral devices using the memory and I/O bus to send input and output (I/O) requests to the I/O controller.